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A review by shesreadingagain_
If the Tide Turns by Rachel Rueckert
adventurous
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Destruction. That is the central theme that seems to tie all that happens throughout this book. The year is 1715, our FMC Maria is a woman that quite literally goes against the current. She is sharp witted, bucks societal and religious norms. She just wants to live her life on her terms, unfortunately, the year is 1715 and that is impossible.
This story is rather dark and I feel that is important to note. Maria is consistently stalked by destruction, I feel it would be easy to say that the people that did Maria wrong are evil or terrible, but I think when we really look, they are all products of their environment. Particularly Maria’s mother. In the eyes of 2024, she seems like such a terrible person that must hate her daughter. I don’t see that, I would encourage the reader to see things from the prospective of a mother born in the last 1600s (where laws were based on religion), she was purely wanting the best for her daughter and she advised her so. She truly believed that if Maria did not follow Gods laws that she would be sentenced to eternal damnation. I’m not saying that is good, bad or indifferent but I strongly recommend placing yourself in the place of these characters and what the real people in these time periods endured. Rueckert made such multidimensional characters, I’ll be thinking about them for a long time to come.
This story is rather dark and I feel that is important to note. Maria is consistently stalked by destruction, I feel it would be easy to say that the people that did Maria wrong are evil or terrible, but I think when we really look, they are all products of their environment. Particularly Maria’s mother. In the eyes of 2024, she seems like such a terrible person that must hate her daughter. I don’t see that, I would encourage the reader to see things from the prospective of a mother born in the last 1600s (where laws were based on religion), she was purely wanting the best for her daughter and she advised her so. She truly believed that if Maria did not follow Gods laws that she would be sentenced to eternal damnation. I’m not saying that is good, bad or indifferent but I strongly recommend placing yourself in the place of these characters and what the real people in these time periods endured. Rueckert made such multidimensional characters, I’ll be thinking about them for a long time to come.